The Doctor and the Dentists' Daughter
by Somewhat Quirky
Summary: She was a person of reason. A person of logic, and wisdom, and all those things that are meant to set a human being in the right direction. And he was a self-proclaimed madman with a box.
1. Sticks and Screwdrivers

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, but Moffat's. And (post-marital) Murray's.

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**Chapter One**

"**Sticks and Screwdrivers"**

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She was a person of reason. A person of logic, and wisdom, and all those things that are meant to set a human being in the right direction. But then again, it went against all logic and wisdom and all those things that are meant to set a human being in the right direction that the existence of magic was something of a truth. And furthermore, that Hermione Granger—plain old Hermione Granger with hair too bushy and brains too big, with dentist parents and a large bookshelf in the corner of her bedroom; Hermione Granger who had managed to survive a war—that _this_ person, of all those in England, simply happened to be gifted with magic.

Now _that_ was a definite oddity.

Perhaps the second greatest oddity of her existence, in fact. Because the first stood right in front of her, teetering on the edge of the Black Lake. The skeleton of a formerly breathtaking school with an equally breathtaking silhouette had smoke billowing out of every orifice, but none of the smog seemed to be having any effect on the striking blue colour of the police box.

It hadn't been there a moment before. Almost like Apparition, but instead of the popping sound of materialization, there was a series of hums and other things Hermione couldn't think of words to describe.

(And if Hermione can't think of something, then it's almost impossible that anybody else in the universe can. Which brings us to what happened next.)

Out of this strange blue box popped a tall young man with clothes that didn't match him. They were several years out of era, and they weren't wizards' robes—tweed jacket, red bowtie, plain striped shirt, slacks and a large pair of shoes. But instead of commenting on this, as would have many normal people, Hermione chose to come out with: "doesn't the door say 'pull'?"

The young man—who had been in the midst of scanning his surroundings with something that looked like a mixture of a wand and a tool, producing a green light and a sound that made Hermione wince out of habit—span around to face the police box again, his limbs following along almost out of sequence, flailing in an eccentric manner. He looked so closely at the sign that his nose could have been touching it.

Then, equally quickly, he turned back to Hermione. "Yeah, guess it does but what's that matter? I've never really set much in store by the rules myself—got me in trouble a few times, actually—but that's not important right now, is it? I don't really know—do _you _think it's important? Of course not—why am I asking you? I don't know that either; let's add that to the list of things I don't know —which isn't much, to be honest, but lists are fun, can I have a list? 'Things I Don't Know'—and I think that up there would probably be at the top of it, along with your name, age and _when_ we are."

Hermione, who often spoke quite hastily herself, was very nearly caught up in the sporadic, fast-paced, practically non-breathing way in which this man spoke; she only just understood that his finger was pointing to the school (well, what was left of it) and he obviously had not heard about the event that had just occurred.

"Well, there's just been a—a big fight—"

"—ooh," said the man, shooting off across the grass and taking such long strides that Hermione had to run in order to keep up, "just come from one of those myself, actually—did you win your fight? I won mine—I usually win fights; having access to all of time and space might just help, too, but—again—that's not important..."

He came to a sudden stop and Hermione did the same, coming scarily close to hitting a tree root and falling over. But, surprisingly, this mystery man wasn't done talking. Did he ever stop?

"You still haven't answered my questions. Name, age, where and when we are."

Hermione looked at him. "I'm Hermione Granger. I'm eighteen years old. This is Scotland—Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, specifically—and the year itself is 1998."

From this, her companion seemed to have extracted two things. "You said 'witchcraft and wizardry'," he repeated; his tone making it apparent that whatever was going on in his mind was happening very fast, "does that involve—what?—crypts, herbal remedies...?"

"Neither," said Hermione. But then she contradicted herself: "Technically, there _are_ herbal remedies, but they're in potions. No, we do a lot more wand waving than any of that other stuff."

To show him what she meant, the witch produced her wand from her pocket. In this moment, she realized that this probably should have been an earlier reaction: strange man comes out of strange box with strange tool; but perhaps her mind had given over to shock, or something similar.

"That's a stick," said the aforementioned 'strange man' in a quite simple way. "Little kids wave them around pretending to be wizards..."

He very suddenly took out his tool again (for it had been deposited in one of his inner-tweed compartments) and began to run it over Hermione and her wand, then clicking a button and reading some kind of result off of it.

"That's different than any reading I've got before," he said, a mixture of worried and interested. "You _look_ human," continued he; taking long strides around Hermione as if to observe her. "What does that stick do, then?"

Hermione (who was very proud of her spell-casting ability) cleared her throat. It felt strange to be doing a charm so simple, so meaningless, after having to fight for her life with such complex ones just hours before. She straightened her arm and sent a shower of gold sparks into the air; crackling and spitting, then becoming before fluid and vibrant and circling around them both, glittering with life and movement and many other wonderful things.

For once, the tall dark-haired man had nothing to say. He had that look on his face again, like he was thinking briskly; then he turned his twinkling, multi-coloured eyes on Hermione.

"I'm taking you with me," he said.

Her eyes widened. "But I _don't know you_!"

"Sure, you do; tall bloke with a sonic screwdriver and a cool bowtie. I'm the Doctor," he added significantly.

"The 'Doctor'," Hermione repeated slowly. "And you want me to leave my friends, my life, a _war we've all just won_ and a whole lot of people who've died to... to go away with somebody who calls himself 'the Doctor'?"

The Doctor's face took on a different expression. He looked old, ancient, timeless; filled to the brim with regret. "Not everybody lives, Hermione Granger."

She felt her eyes pricked with tears. "You think I don't know that?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I know you know it, because you seem smart. That's why I want to take you with me."

"Because I'm smart?"

"Because you're smart and lots of smart people want to see the world." He exhaled. "With me, you can see not just the world, but the universe—even outside it —wherever you want, _whenever_ you want. As long as it's incredible."

For some reason (perhaps it was the lost look in his eyes), Hermione believed him.

"Will I come back?" she asked quietly.

The Doctor looked at her. "I can have you back half an hour ago, if you'd like."

The two of them subconsciously began the walk back to the blue police box. Hermione's wand remained in her hand, and the Doctor's 'sonic screwdriver' in his.

"You know," said Hermione, just as they reached the doors of the phone box, "you've left me with more questions than answers."

The Doctor shrugged, pushing the door open and stepping aside to allow her entrance. "I tend to do that."


	2. TARDIS and Exposition

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Oh, how I wish it were otherwise.

**AN:** I'm so sorry there's been such a wait between chapters! In case this wasn't clear, this story takes place pre-loss of Ponds. So the TARDIS still looks like it did in that era, and the Doctor still wears his beautiful, beautiful tweed jacket. (I also wanted to continue this because I'm a bit upset about Matt leaving.)

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**Chapter Two**

"**TARDIS and Exposition"**

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He loved to hear them say it—"it's bigger on the inside!". That's usually one of the better parts of new companions: the initial surprise upon boarding the TARDIS. It's against all kinds of human physics, such a thing even existing: an infinite labyrinth of temporal energy, ever-growing and ever-changing, just like the universe itself... the fact that such a massive space could fit inside a 1960s police call box often bewildered new TARDIS inhabitants.

However, as much as the Doctor loved to hear it—"it's bigger on the inside!"—he did not get what he wanted with Hermione Granger.

"Undetectable Extension Charm?" she surmised, taking a few steps in and scanning around the spacious room with those large brown eyes of hers.

The Doctor, moderately displeased by this, closed the TARDIS doors behind him and continued past Hermione to the console, on which he proceeded to lean.

"This is exquisite magic," said Hermione, hurrying to join the Doctor as he began to flick different switches, all of which looked extremely foreign and nonsensical to the witch.

"Humans call it magic," the Doctor explained, "I call it the TARDIS. Time-And-Relative-Dimension-In-Space. From Gallifrey, originally."

"Gallifrey...?"

"The planet of the Time Lords—my home, too; once upon a time..."

"But I've studied Astronomy for years," Hermione protested logically. (Or, rather, in a way that she _thought_ to be logically.) "I never read anything about Gallifrey, or Time Lords."

The Doctor sighed. "Most people don't. Terrible holes in human education—even in terms of you people—_witches and wizards_."

His tone indicated that he still thought the whole thing rather suspect. He began to trail around the console again, pressing various buttons and fiddling with things to keep himself busy. Hermione seemed like the sort of person who argued a point; less so than other people he had known in his time, but _still_...

"You keep saying 'human'," Hermione noticed. She looked at him through the cylinder shooting up into the ceiling, and though it made his face seem scrambled and deformed to her, and hers to him, the Doctor understood perfectly the emotion in Hermione's eyes. "I take it you're not?"

The Doctor smiled. "I'm the last of my kind."

"The last of the Time Lords?"

He nodded. "The very last."

"That must be terribly lonely," said Hermione.

The Doctor faltered momentarily, but then plastered on a grin. "Nah," he told her. "That's what I've got you for. Company. Now, Miss Granger, where would you like to go? Forward, backward, last Tuesday to see your Aunt Mildred; anything—_anywhere_—you like. Completely up to you."

Hermione thought about it. "I... what about..."

Of its own accord, without its pilot touching anything at all, the TARDIS began to take off, to dematerialize, and though the Doctor knew what to expect, Hermione did not. The ship gave a great lurch and the Doctor threw himself forward, grabbing her hand before she went flying off to Goodness-Knows-Where; they shot through the Time Vortex and Hermione found herself laughing in disbelief—a most contrary gesture, given what she was often like—and the Doctor found himself smiling as he watched her. _There_ was the New Companion Expression. The elation, the complete and utter shock...

The Doctor let go of Hermione and dashed around the console to the landing gears, which he commanded with precise attention and resulted in (though River Song could do the same job soundlessly) the grinding noise he had grown to quite like. He turned to Hermione.

"Is this some kind of larger-scale Time Turner device?"

The Doctor's brow furrowed, not looking at Hermione but at the screen in front of him. They seemed to be on some kind of larger ship, probably dating around 402,393-Gobble-5, give or take the 'gobble'. "Not that I know of," he said in response, "but I suppose it could be, I mean there's _time_ and it does a lot of turning, so—d'you want to see where we've landed?"

Hermione looked at him, her smile growing slowly. She nodded.

He flicked the scanner around to show her and watched as her eyes narrowed. "Where are we?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Want to find out?"

But just as he was about to rush over to the door and do something that everyone else in the universe probably would have deemed incredibly impressive, Hermione called out to stop him.

"Don't you think we'll get noticed?" she asked. "With all the people outside wearing completely different clothes to us?" She pointed to the screen. "You'd be okay in the tweed, but I'm wearing jeans. I don't think these people have encountered much denim, in terms of clothing."

The Doctor made a face. (He didn't know what these 'people' were wearing, but he trusted her on it.) "Right. There's a closet down the hall, on the left."

Hermione nodded and dashed off. She returned ten minutes later in clothes that the Doctor guessed she had seen people wearing on the scanner; frilly burgundy dress, lots of white tassels.

"What took you so long?" asked the Doctor.

Hermione looked at him. "This TARDIS is _enormous!_" she said. "I couldn't even _see_ to the end of that corridor—don't you think that would've merited lack of speed?"

He shrugged. "You get used to it. Ready?"

She repeated the earlier nod and met him at the door. "Is there a library in-amongst all this?"

"Yeah, really big one! _Really Big Library_—that's not what I call it, but... yeah... why, you like books?"

"I _adore_ them."

"Good to know," said the Doctor. "I could take you to the biggest library in the universe—there's actually a planet, believe it or not, that is _entirely_ a library! Went there once," he said, smile fading to something like distaste, "wasn't as much about books as you'd imagine —_had to keep the lights on_."

Hermione looked puzzled, but decided not to push it. Instead, she tapped on the door. "Mind if we...?"

The Doctor snapped back to reality. "Oh—yes—of course. Let's do that! Let's go and explore, eh?"

And with that, he opened the door.


End file.
